Hud Auction

September 27, 1989|By Timothy G. Solberg, Lakeside Association.

CHICAGO — Your recent editorial opens by criticizing HUD for influence-peddling and deal-making in past years. Yet you conclude that HUD should have made a special deal allowing a community group, Voice of the People, to buy a high-rise. The public auction of the high-rise was the first intelligent action HUD made regarding the Lakeside Square apartments.

Two years ago this building was slated for public auction. Because pressure groups prevented this sale in 1987, no mortgage payments were collected, chronic mismanagement continued and repairs which a new owner would have made were delayed, causing tenant living conditions to further deteriorate.

Voice of the People exerted its influence and stalled the auction through the courts. In the end it took a court decision this June to stop these delays and order the open and public auction of this high-rise. The result of this court order was a nationally publicized auction which brought in a bid of $4.4 million -- $3.4 million more than the $1 million special deal Voice of the People wanted to cut. That is $3.4 million more which will help shoulder the taxpayers` burden.

The public auction of this high-rise is an example of Secretary Jack Kemp`s reformed HUD giving tenants of a mismanaged subsidized building a chance for better living conditions.